Brussel Sprouts Questions...

I love brussel sprouts. My wife has even made me Brussel Sprout Curry(once). She MUST love me!
Anyway, I am new to this growing lark but I decided to try to grow organically. I put in six plants that my wife had kindly nurtured from seed, a couple of beer slug traps and watched. After a few weeks they were about 15" high and looked really healthy. Of course, those butterflies started to appear. But I thought, "Cuh it'll be alright theres only a few of them."

Imagine my surprise then, one Saturday morning, when inspecting said plants to find them CRAWLING with caterpillers all busily chewing my bestest brussel leaves. All tree hugging ideas vanished from my head. I went to the garage and found an elderly sprayer full of "Rose Clear" and doused the plants in it. The caterpillers were literally faling off the plants as I sprayed. I then thought that it might not have been the greatest idea as I might have poisoned the entire crop. But no harm has come to me yet. They were sprayed about 10 weeks ago and Ive just eaten some a week ago.
Anyway, to the questions.......

What is the best and cheapest way to keep butterflies off the plants without resorting to hideous chemicals?

When harvesting them is it OK to remove them as you need them or does the lot have to come off at once?
I have been using them as required and the plants seem OK

Do you have to wait for the first frost to start picking them or is that just folklore?

What crop is the best thing to plant in the round they will vacate? A root crop?

Sorry for all the newbie questions but I am here to (try to) learn.

THanks

 

I used to grow brussels a while back.
We always planted them between the rows of early spuds, once the earlies had been dug the brussels had the place to themselves for the rest of the year.

You dont need to pick all the sprouts at once, just as you need them, plus the top of the plant can be a good small cabbage if you like.

As to catterpillars, I always sprayed for white fly, so maybe that sorted them out as well.

 

By far the best way to keep the butterlies off is to use some form of netting. You can get stuff that is made to just deter butterflies or go for an even finer mesh that will keep greenfly and aphids out too. I've been using the latter type for three years now and have never had to resort to chemical sprays.

BTW - Brussel Sprout & Chestnut soup is a favourite in our house.

 

Dave W is absolutely correct about the netting.

As for the frost thing, apparently frost concentrates the sugars in the plant so they do taste sweeter. This is also true for leeks and parsnips.
The sugar acts as a sort of antifreeze and stops internal liquid freezing and bursting the cells of the plant. Exotic plants don't know how to do this and so up and die.

 

Re Parsnips - Last year we dug up a couple before any frost and I thought they tasted quite bitter and unpleasant. They were much nicer later in the winter.

 

Every weekend we have Parsnips and Brussels from my allotment and I will keep picking them till way after xmas. The colder the climate gets the better it tastes.

When I saw the first signs of catterpillars I sprayed the Brussels and put fine netting over it.

I Got 50 meters x2 debris netting for £23. and covered all my butterfly friendly veg.

 

£23!! surely thats an expensive way to eat veg?? 02

 

50 metres for just £23 is a heck of a lot of veg protected for ten years or more. Work out how much it would cost to spray an equivalent area of veg over ten seasons.

 

I have picked loads of brussels already and have got them in the freezer.Grew Bedford Filbasket this year and they have tasted really good.We used netting that we got reduced from B&Q a few years ago so didn't have to spray.It is quiet thinn stuff with largish holes but it served it's purpose.:p

02 that debis netting is good stuff and as DaveW says will last a long time,much better than spraying:flwsml:

 

I need the debris netting I cannot use sprays because hubby has Crohns disease and not good for his tummy. The net is very fine. Purchased this from Tildenet ltd. Internet sale.

 

Had our first Brussells last night, very nice too, though not as big as last years. As to the caterpillar problem I pick them off by hand and feed them to the chickens!

 

Good Idea Celia which gives me the idea of feeding them to my fish next year. I will bare this in mind. Thank you Celia.

 

my Carp love the cattys from to brussels .

best way to pick them (the cattys) is to wait about two hours after sunset then with a torch pop up the allotment and collect your chicken/fish food. i can tell you that fish will scoff them up as fast as you can feed
who says you cant feed fish in the winter that's absolute twoddle
all you gotta do is find the correct food for them
:gnthb:

 

Thank you for that info Master